Case Study: Young male who contacted ChildLine about being addicted to porn

I first saw porn when I was eight. Lads at my primary school would show me videos and photos on their phones. It was a laugh and I wanted to join in. I then looked at it online and was shocked at how many sites came up in my online search.  When I first properly watched it I looked at the images between my fingers as I was confused. After a while though it felt normal and I started enjoying it.

By secondary school I was accessing porn loads of times every day. At school, me and my friends would share them on our phones; none of the boys were embarrassed about watching it. At home, I watched it more and more in my room and was masturbating a lot too.

I downloaded films and images to my phone and watched adult TV channels. I knew all the channel numbers by heart and knew which channels had the best girls.

I hadn’t known anything about sex before watching porn so I learnt everything from there. I didn’t understand about consent, how old people have to be able to give consent, or what was legal or not. I didn’t know the positive and negative things about sex, all I knew was porn. I understand now that watching so much porn led me to have an unhealthy relationship with sex and the differences between porn sex and real sex.

Working with the NSPCC has helped me to understand what a healthy sexual relationship is, and how porn can mislead you to believing other things. The biggest thing I’ve learnt is about consent.

A couple of weeks ago one of my friends had a fight with his girlfriend because she wouldn’t do things with him that he’d seen in porn. He thought it was ok to force her to do it. I got upset with him and defended his girlfriend.

I have a girlfriend now, and even though we’re not old enough to be in a legal sexual relationship, when the time comes, it will be consensual and what both of us want. I respect her and her decisions and that’s what being in a healthy relationship is.

I can’t believe how much time I wasted on porn. I feel so much healthier by going out, playing football and going to the gym.  I have a good relationship with my girlfriend. My message is there’s more to life than porn and masturbating.

For help and support click here.

Disclaimer: All names and potentially identifying details have been changed to protect the identity of the young person.